Chutes and Ladders

by Moonlit-Jeannie

Flashfic for Lady Azura. "Casey is sucked into a vortex while cleaning out the games closet and ends up in a parallel universe where no one is the same, not even herself." Pairings: Dasey, Rendra, and Rasey if you look really close for all three.

AN: I know that this is beyond late and not at all what you wanted, but here is your flashfic, Miranda. I don't have the exact prompt, but I did run the basic idea by her for a reminder because my computer died, and she confirmed it. Basically, it goes like this: "Casey is sucked into a vortex while cleaning out the games closet and ends up in a parallel universe where no one is the same, not even herself." She requested specifics for Derek, Lizzie, Edwin, and Marti as well as Trevor and Emily, but whoever else I included was up to me...so I hope you guys enjoy.

Also, I do realize that this is a very pointless fic, but hey, so was the last one and a few people still liked it. It has more of a point than Hemispheres, which people say was made for Carshall shippers only (maybe that's why I liked it?), but who cares? Enjoy the weirdness and randomness of it all...and also the random BHH hints that I dropped. See if you can find them all.

Um...wow. This is long. Almost 13000 words before the AN.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

-:-:-LwD-:-:-

Casey juggled the three boxes in her arms, accidentally dropping Chutes and Ladders to the floor as she pushed the long abandoned game of Concentration up to its place on the shelf. Sighing, she set Chinese checkers on the ground and stood on the tips of her toes to boost Clue up to rest on top of Concentration.

She had come up with the idea to clean the house up and surprise her mom and George, who were out of town for the week, so the two could come home to a cleaner, more organized home than the one that they left. Cleaning made her content and she was sure that a clean, organized house would make the entire family be more at peace. Unfortunately, when she ran the idea by Lizzie, Edwin, Marti, and Derek, they laughed before running off to their various activities. Derek was going to Ralph's to check out a new video game, Edwin had to take his mascot uniform to the cleaners (Or so he said, Casey wasn't really sure about that one.), Marti said she had promised Dimi that she would help him dig a hole to China so they could get lots of fortune cookies, and Lizzie had soccer practice. So Casey was left alone to do the cleaning, including alphabetizing the games closet, by herself.

"Like they were all telling the truth anyway," she said aloud. "Well, Lizzie does have soccer practice, but everyone else…every single one of them is probably lying."

She moved to pick up the next two games, Chinese checkers and Chutes and Ladders, but paused when she could only find the Chinese checkers box that she had placed on the floor to be able to put Clue on the shelf. Looking around the dimly lit closet, Casey suddenly found herself wishing that it had better lighting. She couldn't make out many of the games that scattered the floor unless she picked them up and held them right in front of her face. She could make out certain games, like Operation, from the color of the box and the illustrations that covered it, but other than that, she wasn't sure what game was what and one thing was for sure, none of them were Chutes and Ladders.

She scoured the small perimeter of the closet, looking for the game in question, before finally giving up when she saw no trace of it. After giving up on the game, Casey took the Chinese checkers box and put it on top of Clue. Just as she returned to the floor to look for the Chess set, she noticed a bright light coming from one of the corners of the closet, one that she didn't remember searching for the game. Curious, she crawled closer, shielding her eyes to protect them from the light that was quickly beginning to envelope the room. When she reached the corner, she saw the game sticking up out of the floor vertically. Confused, because she hadn't been to that corner of the room, Casey grabbed onto the box with both hands and attempted to pull it out to no avail.

"Okay Derek," she called. "If this is your idea of a joke, it isn't really funny. So if you have something set up at Ralph's and you're watching this…you better turn it the lights off right now, or at least down, and let me pull this stupid game out."

The game sunk deeper into the floor and Casey screamed. "Der-ek! Seriously, this isn't funny anymore." She let go of the game as it once again shifted, sinking through the floor. "I don't want to die, I don't want to die. I'm too young to die. I've not even had a decent boyfriend. I'm only sixteen, I don't want to die!" she yelled as the game fell entirely through the floor, but it was too late, and she fell through after it.

Once Casey hit the ground, she looked around to make sure that she was still alive, but once again freaked out when she didn't recognize her surroundings. It looked like the games closet, or at least it was the same size of it and was just as dark as it was, she reached around for the chain to turn on the light, but was confused when it wasn't where it should be. Backing up into the wall, Casey found herself in a row of clothing. She ran for the door and ran her hand along it in search of the doorknob, but instead found a light switch. Flipping it on, she looked around the closet, and that's what it was, an actual closet that someone would keep their clothes in. The walls were lined with shoes and dresses and other clothes and she felt like she was in 13 going on 30, but in a much smaller closet. Casey recognized a few pairs of the shoes, they were pairs that her mother had definitively told her that she could not have several times.

The door opened just as she was reaching for one of the beautiful shoes and a boy walked in, "What are you doing in here?" he hissed. "I thought it was you, but I thought that you at least knew better. Come on before Ellie finds you in her closet and executes you." He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out the door, "You can kill me later for borrowing your Sharpies even though I will have probably returned them by then, but I needed them to label my science project. And what did you do to your hair? Your mom will kill you if she finds out that you spent a lot of money on hair extensions."

As they walked down the hallway, well, he skittered and her feet were dragging the floor, she recognized that it was in fact her house, but it was very different. The boy pulled her into a room that from its place in the hallway, she recognized as Derek's, but once inside, looked like it belonged to a different species. Finally, the boy turned around and she was able to get a good look at him. His hair, she'd gotten a good look at before, and she had noted that it was close to the same color as Derek's, but greasier and more unkempt. He looked like Derek too, but with a few more pimples and a pair of weird looking glasses resting on his nose. He didn't dress like Derek at all. He was wearing an orange shirt with a weird picture on it and a pair of khaki pants that zipped off into shorts and looked a little too short for him.

"Derek?" she asked, unsure of whether or not it was really him. He was acting, well, strange. The whole thing was pretty weird in her book.

"Yeah?" he looked up from a drawer that he had been rifling through and held out a handful of Sharpies before pushing his glasses further up his nose. "I told you I'd return them if that's what you want to know."

"If this is your idea of a prank, I don't find it very funny…just like I didn't find the whole thing with the Chutes and Ladders box very funny and just like I didn't find the whole light, weird setup of me getting sucked through the floor. Great job, it must have taken a lot of work and I don't even want to know how much money you spent on it, but as soon as your dad and my mom get back from visiting Aunt Madge, you are in so much trouble."

Derek frowned at her and withdrew his hand, "Okay, don't take your Sharpies. I'm afraid I don't follow…"

"You know, your little act is really getting old, Derek, although I commend you on your excellent acting skills. Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about! And why did you change the whole house around? How did you do it? I was just organizing the games closet…and I don't even want to know how you changed it with me in there. I thought you were going over to Ralph's to play a videogame."

"Okay…" he said slowly. "If anyone has an act going on, it's definitely you, Casey. Your hair? Of course, you could have gotten hair extensions, but I really don't think so. Your clothes? Since when do you dress like that? Or even wear pink? I thought you said that pink was for brain dead idiots who had nothing better to do, but go around saying 'rah-rah' and leading cheers? And Ralph…you know that Ralph hasn't played a videogame since you told him that he needed to focus on more political issues and stop playing games that objectify women. He's at the feminist protest downtown even though becoming actively involved with a feminist group wasn't exactly what you had in mind."

Casey began to laugh and looked down at her clothes, "Okay, now I know you're joking. My hair? It's been long since I first met you. My clothes? For the most part, sure, my style has been a little subpar, but I've been dressing like this for the entire school year. And it isn't like it's that much different than I dressed before. It's just a little more…improved, thanks to Kendra. I mean, you should remember your ex-girlfriend taking me under her wing and helping me with my style a little bit and throwing that party for me where I met Max. Granted, that didn't turn out great, but it's not Kendra's fault."

"Kendra my ex-girlfriend? She's my best friend. You know that. You like to make fun of her even though it isn't as if you're that much better than us. I think you're confused, Casey. You said something about falling through the floor? Did you hit your head or something? Maybe you have amnesia. Or possibly, you had a hallucination and now you're confusing real life with the hallucination."

"Or maybe, oh smart one, since you seem to know everything…you're the hallucination because the Derek Venturi that I know would never be seen looking…the way you do right now."

"And does the Casey McDonald that you know always look the way you look right now?" he asked before walking over to his desk and picking up a picture frame that sat next to the computer. "Because the one that I know generally looks like this."

He held out the frame for Casey to look at and she gasped. It was a wedding picture, presumably of her mom and George's wedding, but it didn't look like the ones that she was used to seeing. Instead, Edwin was dressing in a pink button-down shirt and khaki slacks with his hair spiked, Lizzie was wearing a very pretty, yellow, silk dress with her hair in ringlets, Marti was wearing a violet dress with lots of lace and her hair was done up in a high bun, and she was wearing a black dress under a black leather jacket and her hair was lopped off right below her chin.

"That's not me…" she whispered. "This is a joke. Seriously, Derek, this is not funny. You need to stop your prank now."

Derek turned the picture back to face him and looked at it thoughtfully before placing it back in its place on his computer desk. He was beginning to realize that the physical differences were not the only ones between the Casey that stood before him and the one that he had grown accustomed to in the last year.

"No, you're right. I believe you. That isn't you," he said in reference to the picture.

The Casey that he knew was nice, to him and to his friends (with the exception of Kendra, who Casey said she found to be annoying), even to Ralph who was constantly stalking her and trying to impress her with his random ideas for protests and things for women's rights. She did try to be mean, but compared to her sister and some of the kids at school, she was probably the person who was nicest to him who actually wasn't in his circle of friends. This new Casey, however, seemed to hate him with every fiber of her being. It didn't seem like it was just an act and she seemed convinced that he was out to get her. Derek wasn't out to get anyone, except for maybe that kid in his class who had gotten a higher score on his last Physics test than Derek had.

"You do?" Casey asked suspiciously, edging toward his bed to sit down. "So you'll change everything back? You aren't going to run off and stick me with the work, are you?"

Derek frowned, his eyebrows drawing together, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really don't know what you're talking about, change everything back? Run off and stick you with the work? I don't think I can do the first thing that you're asking, simply because I don't understand the request, but as for running off, I won't do that. In fact," he said slowly, afraid to get her hopes up, "I think I might have a hypothesis regarding why you are here."

"Okay, you cannot know the word hypothesis, much less what it means. Have you been talking to Edwin? Sam, maybe? Who else is in on this?"

Derek walked over to his computer desk and grabbed the chair, dragging it over to rest in front of Casey. Full of frustration, he collapsed into the chair and placed his hands on his knees. "Okay, like I said, I don't know what you're talking about. I barely even talk to Edwin; he's so absorbed with Ellie. And Sam? Sam who? Sam Wallace? Why would I be talking to the quarterback of our school?"

Casey started to open her mouth in reply, but Derek held up on of his hands to signal her to stay silent. "Okay, I do have a few theories. They each rely on the fact that you tell me what exactly happened, and tell the truth. Also, you'd have to believe whatever I say, don't doubt it, no matter how out of the ordinary it sounds to you because even though I know you're not scientific at all and don't believe that any of these things are possible, I do."

She glared and crossed her arms, "Okay then, what are these so called theories of yours?"

"The first one," he began, "relies on this. Are you an alien being? Were you sent here to make contact with humans in an effort to make peace with us or even to begin a war?"

Casey shook her head, "You know what? This is ridiculous. I can just put everything back by myself. I don't need your help just tell me where you hid everything. Did you hide the stuff in Edwin's room?" She moved to get up from the bed but Derek stood up, pushing his chair away and blocking her in.

"So you aren't an alien being, I guess I shouldn't have asked that. I'll move on to the next possibility, just sit down."

"I don't know why I should sit down. You obviously got high while you were at Ralph's or something. An alien being? Really? Although I would expect better from you, Derek." She sat anyway and Derek smiled gratefully.

"Thank you. Now, the next possibility is that you came through a wormhole, a vortex if you will. It would explain why you yourself are so different and why everything here seems so different to you. You're from a different dimension. An alternate universe of sorts. It can all be explained by String Theory, but that would probably just confuse you," Derek explained.

Casey snorted, "If anyone were to be confused by String Theory that would obviously be you, Derek. I read and I watch television. I also actually pay attention in class, so I know what it is and what exactly it entails, so go on. I'd like to hear you try to explain this."

"Well, even if you do think that you know what it is, I nevertheless want to keep my explanation as elementary as possible. I suppose the only way that I can affirm it is by telling you that from what I can gather, if this theory is what happened, you traveled through an Inter-universe wormhole. Those wormholes are believed to permit travel from one parallel universe to another. Of course there is no record of something like that transpiring, so to say that this is exactly what happened to you would be based upon little data and pure speculation. Also, we wouldn't have anything to depend upon to get you back to your own universe."

"You're serious, aren't you? You really think there's a possibility that I came through a wormhole? But I thought that most of them were like the project accelerator on Quantum Leap, they connected from one time to another. I know that I obviously wouldn't end up in someone else's body or with an observer that only I could see, but in the movies and on television, don't people generally travel through time and not space?" Casey asked, panicked and confused. She had been attempting to prompt Derek into putting an end to his charade, but he only continued to keep it up, and he seemed to know more about his little "theory" than she did, which scared her. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he wasn't trying to prank her after all. "Okay," she breathed. "Let's say that you are telling the truth and that this theory of yours is right. You said that we wouldn't have anything to rely on to get me back, does that mean that I'm stuck here?"

"Not exactly. I'm sure that we could come up with something, and while it wouldn't be an Intra-universe wormhole, which is the kind you are thinking of, and is documented in movies and books more than Inter-universe wormholes, if we look at all of the things that led up to your arrival here and what happened afterward, then we could, in theory, figure out a way to get you home and to get the other Casey back, as well."

Casey ran a hand down her face before she fell back on Derek's bed, before quickly righting herself when she realized whose bed she had just laid down on. As if it were even clean, it was bad enough she was sitting on it, much less lying in it. She narrowed her eyes. Sure, this Derek appeared to be a complete and utter loser, but that didn't mean that he wasn't still…she couldn't even think it. "Okay, and if this were the case, how long do you think this could take?"

Derek pursed his lips, "I'm not quite sure exactly," he admitted. "It could take a few days, a few weeks, even a few months or years. Parallel universes aren't my area of expertise, I'm more up on the possibility of a space invasion, hence my first suggestion. I want to be ready for when they land. But," he coughed and pushed his glasses up his nose once again, "I do know quite a lot about them and they are Kendra's area of expertise. Ralph isn't too bad on the subject either," he added. "We'll try to get you to your own universe as soon as we possibly can, though."

Casey nodded and started to say something before Derek spoke again, "We will have to do something about your hair though."

Casey's hand went up to finger her long hair and her eyes widened. "Oh no. No, no, no. Now I know that you're still trying to pull a prank on me, Derek. I am not going to cut my hair. Why would I even have to cut my hair?"

He gave her a look as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Did you not see that picture of the other Casey?" he asked. "She has extremely short hair. If you go downstairs or even to school tomorrow with long hair done up like it is, then you'll be busted and who's to say how long it will take for all of us to get together to try to come up with a theory to get you home? I have a pair of scissors here that Ralph left the last time he was here. I think I can also steal a bottle of Nora's hair color from the closet without her noticing. What do you think?"

"I think you aren't touching my hair."

An hour later Casey was sitting in the chair with her back to Derek, her wet and newly colored hair trailing down her back. The towel that was wrapped around her shoulders was nearly soaked and causing her to shiver, but she tried her best to ignore it. "I swear, if you mess it up on purpose, I will kill you. At least the hair color was actual hair color and not some weird dye. I suppose I can give you that, but if I end up with a mohawk I am coming after you while you're asleep."

"I can assure you that I will not give you a mohawk," Derek said with a comb in one hand parting her hair into separate parts. He picked up the scissors and poised them right above the line that the comb made. "Oh," he said as he cut through the first chunk of hair and more than half of it fell into the trashcan.

"Oh, what?" Casey asked suspiciously. "What did you do, Derek?"

"Nothing bad, it looks fine. I just wasn't expecting it to be that easy. Every time someone tries to cut their hair as a child, it is so hard, but this just cut right through your hair."

"It might be because those are scissors designed for cutting hair and the ones that you used as a kid would be, you know, kid scissors," Casey pointed out. "Now please, cut before you forget where you cut before and before my hair dries and it ends up uneven."

"Right," Derek muttered sheepishly. Casey rolled her eyes. She was beginning to believe that this wasn't the same Derek, but for someone who seemed so smart, he also seemed equally stupid.

He snipped at yet another chunk of hair and silence began to prevail. Another lump dropped into the trash as he pushed the can around with his foot. "So," he began cautiously, "you're very different from the Casey that I have become accustomed to, and you have said a few things about your Derek. How different am I from the me that you know?"

Casey's tongue darted out to lick her lips out of nervousness, whether it was from the fact that it was Derek, hers or not (Since when did she start referring to him as being her Derek in all of this? He belonged to the universe she was from, not to her), cutting her hair or from this Derek asking about the other Derek, she wasn't sure.

"Am I allowed to talk about everyone?" she tested her luck. If she was still jinxed and unlucky in this universe, then he would say that she would be able to, but if she had much better luck, she would be free from having to explain and from having to talk about Derek to, well, Derek. That would just be too awkward.

The cutting ceased for a moment and he told her to lean forward before he began to comb pieces of hair from the nape of her neck together. "I suppose you can. I'm not absolutely sure whether or not it would be looked upon as being taboo. You aren't from the future or from the past, so you wouldn't be in any danger of an actual time paradox, I don't believe. I'm also sure that this Casey is where you belong at this moment, so there would be no actual paradox in that sense of the word either." His clammy hand picked at a few stray hairs right next to her neck and snipped. "It might help us with our objective in the end as well, so it could prove to be a great help."

"Well, there isn't much that I can tell you about Derek," Casey said slowly. "All that I can really say is that I hope the Casey from your universe isn't with the Derek from my universe because she will not be getting the same kind of help from him that I am getting from you. He is such a slacker and he doesn't care about anyone except for himself. Oh, and Marti too, but other than that? Good luck, you're on your own. Well, I suppose sometimes he can come through…but that's a rare occasion. He is also a total player. He always has a girl that he's going after or that he's dating at the moment. And don't get me started on the list of girls he's dated, or even just who he's made out with. It is too long to write up, I think. It would take me days. He plays hockey, he's the star player and Sam? He's his best friend, that's why I mentioned him. He's best friends with Ralph too, but it seems like you're still friends with him in this universe," she paused to take a breath, not noticing that Derek had stopped his cutting, yet again.

"Are you finished?" he asked tentatively. "I thought you said that you couldn't tell me a lot about him. You seem to know a lot about him."

"Finished? I am nowhere close to finished, there's more, but if you don't want to hear it, then I suppose I'm finished. And of course I know a lot about him…we've lived together for more than a year and he continues to be the bane of my existence. How could I not know a lot about him?"

Derek continued his haircutting and tried to find the right words. Casey seemed testy, much like she had been when she first appeared, and he didn't want to set her off again. "Well, I just assumed by the way you said that there wasn't much that you could tell me about him that you didn't know much yourself, but it seems like you do. He likes to play pranks too, doesn't he? You kept thinking that this was all a prank."

"Yeah," Casey harrumphed. "Pranks, bets, you name it. What doesn't he like to do? Well, except for school work. Oh, and help out around the house. Or…help period."

"What is your sister like in your universe?" Derek asked curiously.

"Lizzie?" Casey inquired.

Derek began to even out the hair, combing bits together and lightly clipping the ends as he had seen done in hair salons, although he had no clue if he himself was doing it correctly. "Is that what you call her there? We call her Ellie here, she prefers it."

Casey mulled over the bit of information, trying to place where she had heard the name before. "Yeah, she goes by Lizzie where I'm from. She's very athletic. She plays soccer, hockey, takes martial arts classes. Um…she's very into the whole 'go green' thing. You know, hybrid cars, saving the rainforest, not eating meat, things like that. She's a peace maker, but if driven to the point or to help someone else, she'll be violent if she has to be. She doesn't care much for looks and fashion, but she does like to look nice."

Derek pushed the trashcan away with his foot and removed the towel from Casey's shoulders. "Really?"

"Yeah, why?" Casey asked when Derek handed her a mirror. "Is everyone completely different here? Not just a few people?" She whirled around in the chair to face Derek and lowered the mirror after taking a peek at her new hair. It wasn't awful, this Derek obviously wasn't one for pranks like his counterpart, but it would take a lot of getting used to. Of course, if it did take weeks, months, or years like Derek had said it might take, she would have plenty of time to get used to it.

"I'm not sure, but your sister, Ellie, or as you know her, Lizzie, is."

There was a light tapping at the door and Derek walked over to it as Casey combed through her hair, trying to find an almost decent way to wear it. When she looked over at the door she found Marti standing stock still dressed in a little yellow sundress.

"Daddy and Nora told me to come upstairs and tell you that it's time for dinner, Derek," the little girl said carefully, trying hard not to stumble over her words. "You don't want to be late, do you? It isn't nice."

Derek shook his head and tossed the towel into the trashcan quickly to cover up the mass amount of hair that took up the greater amount of room in it. "No, it isn't nice, is it? Casey and I will be down shortly. She, uh, just washed her hair and she has to dry it first. You know how cold it gets downstairs; she doesn't want to get sick."

Marti eyed him suspiciously before nodding, "Okay. I'll tell Daddy, but you better be downstairs soon." She walked away with her hands clasped behind her back and Casey stared after her with a strange look on her face. Derek closed the door to his room and turned around to find Casey looking at him with the same strange expression.

"What is it? Is Marti different than the one that you're used to?"

"No," Casey did a double-take, "I mean yes…but you called her Marti. And she called you Derek…and she was reserved. It was strange."

Derek frowned, "Marti is her name, why would I call her anything else?"

"It's nothing. I just keep forgetting how different things are here. You and Marti have a sort of special bond and you call each other Smarti and Smerek."

Derek's wrinkled his nose. "Why would we do that?"

Casey pulled the towel from the trashcan and shook as much hair as she could from it before she ran it over her head furiously, trying to dry her hair. Her hair had never been one to dry quickly, even when she was very little and she actually did wear it short, the thickness of her hair caused it to take hours to dry. "I don't know where the nicknames came from," she admitted. "It's just something that the two of you do where I'm from. Just like you lie all the time, which I didn't notice before…but you just lied to Marti. Do you lie here?"

Derek looked confused, "I didn't lie. What do you mean?" Then he realized what she was talking about and waved a hand at her. "What are you doing right now? You're drying your hair. So I didn't lie."

Casey stopped toweling her hair dry and stared at Derek incredulously. "I'm drying my hair because you said I was going to dry my hair. I don't want to be caught in a lie. It isn't as if I had that intention to begin with because I didn't know that we would have to go downstairs to eat."

"Oh. Well, I didn't know that you weren't going to dry your hair. I figured you would, so I didn't lie either."

Casey shook her head in disbelief and lightly touched her hair with one of her hands. Although it was still damp, it was dry for the most part. "Forget it. Let's just go downstairs." She started for the door, but stopped when Derek hesitated and didn't follow her out. "What's wrong now?"

"You're going downstairs dressed like that?"

She looked down at her pink blouse and dark jeans, "I had planned on it…why? Should I not be going downstairs dressed like this?"

"I told you what the other you says about clothes like that," he reminded her. "You have some clothes in your room that you can change into. Do you know where it is?"

"I do if it's in the same place it is at home." She started to walk to the room that was hers, but Derek grabbed her arm, stopping her before she walked inside.

"What are you doing?" he asked incredulously. "That's Ellie's room." He pointed toward the room that Casey knew as Lizzie's and for a short time, hers, before she got her own room. "That's your room."

Casey frowned, "No, it isn't. It used to be my room."

Derek shook his head, "No, it is your room. You and Ellie almost had to share rooms, but she was adamant about not sharing a room with her." He sighed, "And about having more closet space too. That's why I pulled you out of there. That closet is full of her clothes, she would be mad if anyone else was in her closet. Unless it was Edwin, he's almost like her maid or something. He'll do anything she says for some kind of hair product or perfume."

"I don't think I want to ask about Edwin, but you're sure this is my room? It just doesn't…add up. Your room was the same and the games closet, while not the same, is still a closet." Derek opened the door for her and she walked inside, looking around her room at the posters for bands that she had never even heard of and also at the anarchy sign that was also on her wall. It was definitely not her room. "I…this…this is not my room," she said slowly, in shock.

"Don't freak out right now, everyone's downstairs and will be able to hear you," he reasoned. "Freak out tomorrow on the way to school, you'll have time to then."

Casey walked over to her closet and opened it before reaching blindly inside. She didn't want to take it all in at once; she didn't think she would be able to take it. She pulled out a pair of black pants that had been cut off to make a pair of very long shorts. They looked like they were made for a man, and she wanted to scream, but she knew that Derek was right. Everyone was downstairs. How would she explain this to them?

"I'll, uh, leave you in here," Derek said nervously, scratching his head slightly. "I'll be right outside if you need me, though. Or if you don't think you'll need me…I could quite possibly go downstairs and join everyone now. I suppose." He backed away toward the door. "I should probably do that, shouldn't I? I'll, uh, go do that now. We're having chicken, I hope you like chicken," he offered as he left the room.

Casey tilted her head to the side and pulled out a shirt that was just as black as the pants and had a picture of a unicorn on it. She thought it was weird, but she didn't stop to think about it before she pulled off her normal clothes and tossed them in the back of the closet and pulled on the new, weird clothes.

-:-:-LwD-:-:-

"Okay, tell me again what my schedule is?" Casey said with her pen poised over a spiral notebook as she awaited the names of classes and the times she had to be in them.

"Your first class is Advanced Art. You're in that class with Kendra, so if you see Kendra, then you know you have the right class. Your second class is Advanced Placement Physics. I'm in that class and so are Kendra and Ralph, Kendra should be able to walk with you to class and you'll be fine. Then, you have Physical Education, but you never dress out because you insist that the class is not only degrading, but that it is also designed for people who could not pass a class on mental work alone and that it is designed against people who do use their brain for the most part."

Casey scribbled down the names and where she remembered the classes to be located in the school. "Okay, and what do I have last?"

"You have English with Ralph. I only know that because he called last night to see if I knew if you had written your poem for class and if it was about him. It was a very awkward conversation."

Casey frowned and nodded before adding English to her list. "And who do I have as teachers for these classes? I just want to make sure that I go to the right PE class or the right English class."

Derek spouted off a few names and looked down at his watch before adjusting the straps of his backpack. "I have to go to class now, but finding Kendra should be easy and you know where the Art room is, so you shouldn't have a great difficulty doing that. Are you sure you won't get lost or anything?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I will," she assured him, looking around the buzzing hallway. "The school looks the same, just like the house looked the same. I don't think there would be many changes made to it…and if it there have been, I guess I could always ask someone for directions. They would help me."

"Right," Derek nodded. "I'm sure they would. Especially with you dressed like that, you almost look normal."

Casey's eyes narrowed. That sounded more like the Derek that she knew as opposed to the other Derek. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?" she asked suspiciously.

He shrugged. "I just meant that generally people won't look twice at you, or even at Ralph, Kendra, or me. It wasn't something that was only aimed at you. I apologize if it sounded that way."

She looked down at the outfit that she had put on that morning. She was wearing a pink dress shirt that she had stolen from Edwin's closet, a skirt and pair of shoes that she had stolen from Lizzie's massive closet (That the things even fit her were a miracle of itself), and underneath the dress shirt she had slipped on a white tank top that the other her surprisingly had. It wasn't the best outfit, but it was all she had been able to come up with in such a rush and under such circumstances. She had also amazingly made her hair look halfway decent, borrowing Lizzie's flatiron and some of her hair products while she had been berating Edwin for taking something from her.

"Okay then, you didn't mean it in a bad way, but you still sound like you meant for it to be a mean comment."

Derek once again looked at his watch. "Look, Casey, I really don't have time for any of this. It's really like you said, people will give you directions if you need them, so why don't you just go find your locker and go to your first class."

Casey chewed on the inside of her cheek and shrugged. "Fine. And you said that I have the same locker?" she asked. She had shared the locker number with Derek the night before after he had finally gotten off of the phone with Kendra and Ralph.

"It's the same. At least, it is the number that you gave me. Whether or not it is in the same place, I'm not exactly sure."

Casey nodded, "I'm sure it is. As long as it's the same number I see no reason for it not to be the same locker. Okay, you said that you have to get to class, so I guess you better go now. I'll be fine."

Derek looked at her, a small look of doubt filtering over his face. "Right then. Alright. Just make sure that you don't talk to everyone who you know back in your universe like you know them because you may not necessarily know them here. And even if you do know them, they will know you to be completely different from the way you are now."

"Okay, fine. Don't talk excessively to anyone. Even Emily. Got it. Now, you go to class and I'll catch you up in Physics."

She turned sharply and almost ran into another girl who was walking down the hallway paying more attention to the keypad on her phone than to who was in front of her. The girl glared at Casey and Casey mumbled a brief apology before walking away and leaving Derek behind to ponder over her last words.

"Emily?" he said to himself. "Why would she even think about talking to Emily? Oh no."

Casey sighed as she followed the numbers on the lockers with her eyes. Apparently she was wrong; her locker was in a different place. Exactly where it was was the question.

She rounded yet another corner only to bump into a group of guys and grabbed the shirt of the guy that she had run into, pulling him down with her. She looked down at the guy and couldn't help but notice that he had the kind of hair that looked like extra time had been spent on it to make it look like there hadn't been any time spent on it at all. He also had the kind of skin that made him look like he should be on a Neutrogena commercial. He was cute, if you liked the type, but since she had just broken up with someone who was pretty much exactly the type, she knew that it was definitely not her type. The guy cleared his throat and Casey saw that she still had his salmon colored Ralph Lauren polo bunched in her hands.

"Sorry," she mumbled and blushed slightly, not because she liked the guy but mainly because she was embarrassed to be going back to her days as Klutzilla. She was sure that the other her wasn't klutzy at all. Of course she probably didn't dance, either.

"Um, not that I mind or anything," the guy started, "but could you maybe get off of me?"

Casey's blush deepened and she hurriedly scrambled to get up. "I am so sorry. This is so embarrassing. I was just trying to find my locker because it isn't where it should be and…I am so sorry."

The guy laughed, "It's no big deal. It isn't every day that I get knocked flat on my back by a gorgeous girl. Of course," he shrugged, "I can't say that the thought probably hasn't crossed the minds of a few girls. Are you new here?"

"You could say that," Casey said slowly. "I'm a sort of transfer student."

"Transfer student, eh?" his eyebrow shot up and Casey could tell that he was intrigued. "Do you have a name?"

Casey's eyebrows furrowed. For some reason the guy in front of her seemed very familiar, but she could place where exactly she had seen him before. Was he someone that she knew back in her universe or was he just one of those people who look like you should know them?

"Yeah, Casey. Casey McDonald. You might know my stepbrother, though. His name is Derek Venturi," Casey prompted, hoping to get something out of him. Maybe he was a friend of Derek's.

The guy shook his head. "No, I don't think I know him."

One of the other guys beside him who was dressed in a lime green polo spoke up, "No, you do. He's that geek who always does your homework, remember? You have statistics with him."

"Oh, yeah. I remember him. Remind me to thank him for the A on my last English paper. My dad would have killed me if I had gotten a B and he would have taken away the Hummer."

Casey frowned. Derek was right, people barely even noticed him here. In comparison to what she was used to, it was enough to make her faint dead away.

"Hey, Trevor, are you going out with Chelsea tonight?" another one of the boy's followers asked. "Because I say you dump her and go for this girl, Chelsea's just a butterface."

Or maybe that would. Casey screamed. "Your name is Trevor? You're…Trevor. Oh my God. What happened to you?" It was all falling into place and now she definitely knew where she recognized him from. It was Trevor. She just didn't…fully recognize him because he looked almost naked without his eye makeup, piercings, and, well, the color black in general.

"Okay, so I've never gotten quite…that reaction from a girl before," Trevor said slowly. "Are you opposed to the whole idea? Because it definitely would not be hard to cancel Chelsea at all."

Casey shook her head. "No, don't do that. Why would you do that? I have no intention of going out with you."

"You don't?" he asked. He was confused. No one had ever said no to him before. "Are you sure? I mean…is it because your little stepbrother does my homework? I'm sure I can go easy on him for a night in exchange for…a night with you," he said suggestively. "Who is that friend of his that's always following him and sweater guy around? The girl that's always drawing. I bet I can get her to take over for a night, or even for a week. She would probably just be excited by the fact that someone, let alone someone of the opposite sex, was talking to her."

She glared; he was much, much worse than Derek. And Derek wasn't even preppy to begin with. It was almost like he was some scary morph between Derek and Max. She shuddered, that was a scary thought.

"Of course I'll go out with you," she responded sarcastically. "Because there aren't so many guys in this world who are better than you. Uh, one, if you want me to go out with you, don't tell me that the only way I would be going out with you is by you canceling with some girl who you call ugly in front of another girl. It doesn't make you look like a hotshot like you think it does. Two, you giving Derek a night off from doing your homework doesn't make you a nice guy, and piling it on Kendra just makes you even worse. Do your own work, at least then you'd probably find out that your age and your IQ are pretty much the same thing."

She let out a frustrated huff and sharply turned on her heel, much like she had only minutes earlier with Derek, but this time she was lucky enough not to bump into anyone. She looked back over her shoulder to gauge Trevor's reaction, still surprised by how different he was from the Trevor that she knew (Although she shouldn't have been surprised because how weird was the spoiled and bratty Lizzie with name brand everything and an intense love for meat and makeup products that had been animal tested?). Casey restarted her process of watching the locker numbers and looked up when she noticed that she was actually getting close to her locker. She saw a girl standing near where she estimated her locker would be whose hair was in dreads with a few random ones dyed a deep, blood red. The girl also had on a black corset tied fairly tight and a black skirt with fishnets and chunky boots.

"Emily?" she asked cautiously when she finally realized that the girl was in fact standing in front of her locker. The girl looked up and glared once she saw Casey. Her eyes were lined with heavy black eye makeup and had been done up in cat eyes. "Wow, it is you. I mean…first Derek, then Marti and Lizzie and Edwin, and Trevor…and now you. Everyone is just so different. It's just so weird. I keep thinking that I'll just wake up and it will all be some dream, but I'm still here. It's just creepy."

Emily pursed her lips which had been lined and covered in a lipstick and liner that was close to the same blood red color as her dreads. "How many times do I have to tell your family that my name is Emeline now? I can't seem to make the fact register with that stupid stepbrother of yours. And better yet, why exactly are you talking to me?"

Casey shrank back, finally remembering what Derek had told her before he had left her on her own. She shrugged and grabbed a couple of books from the locker. "Well, it was nice talking to you. I hope you have a nice day," she offered awkwardly, trying to cover up her slip.

Emily merely stared with raised eyebrows as if daring Casey to say something else, but Casey didn't and quickly ran for the stairs that led to the art room. She really needed to remember next time to not talk, pretty much at all, unless, of course, she was talking to Derek, Kendra, or Ralph. Otherwise, people would just stare at her like she was crazy. Although, after living with Derek for over a year, at least the Derek that she was used to, being looked at like she was crazy really shouldn't be so out of the ordinary. Because of him, she had been looked at like she was crazy many, many times.

Of course the crazy stare was something that she herself had performed many times the night before. The first time she had found herself conducting it was when Marti had taken a cloth napkin and laid it carefully across her lap before asking Derek to "please pass the broccoli and spinach" and then thanked him after her had followed through with the request. In her world, that would have somehow ended with the creamed spinach all over Casey. She just knew it. Another time that she had performed that look was when Lizzie, or Ellie as everyone seemed to call her, walked downstairs and took one look at the lavish and amazing looking meal of filet mignon, salad, steamed broccoli, creamed spinach, and rolls (yet another thing that made Casey wonder what was going on in this world…and why she was living in the one she was not in instead of this seemingly perfect world) and demanded that George and their mother give her enough money to order Chinese or pizza because she could not eat food from a surplus store. Edwin, who seemed to worship this Lizzie more than he had ever admired the Derek of her world, instantly went to Lizzie's defense and the two ordered in and ate in the living room while watching a movie marathon instead of at the table with the remaining five members of their family. That was when Casey had began to think that maybe the world that she was in now wasn't as perfect as she had originally believed. Sure, the Derek that lived in it was great…and the Marti was the most polite little girl that she had ever seen, but she seemed very standoffish and cold, almost as if she lived in Pleasantville or something. She almost expected to see her in black and white instead of in color.

She heard murmurs coming from the classroom at the end of the hall that she knew to be the Art classroom in her universe, and quickly walked toward it, afraid that she would be late for class even though Derek had told her that tardiness wasn't a big deal in the class, she didn't want to draw attention to herself or to be late. She felt like it was her first day of school, even though it wasn't, and although tardiness was never acceptable for her, it most certainly wasn't on the first day of school. She peered into the room, clutching at the door to make sure it didn't close and draw attention to her. Everyone seemed either busy, at work on independent projects, or talking before the bell rang. The only problem was she didn't see Kendra.

She quickly drew in a breath and walked into the room looking around for the girl who was supposed to be helping her and whose presence she had been very familiar with during the time that she and Derek had dated, but the perky blonde was nowhere to be found. Finally, she realized that the perky blonde girl that she knew probably wouldn't be who she would find. After all, Derek was a geek who seemed to really like physics, Trevor was preppy, and Emily was, well, what she could only assume to be some sort of Goth.

Casey could feel the stares of everyone and knew that they were probably wondering about her wardrobe or quite possibly why she was hovering by the door like she was. She noticed one girl who had not looked up at the sudden silence, but remained hunched over her place at the table. Sighing, Casey walked over to the table and sat down across from the girl.

"Kendra?" she whispered hesitantly, trying to keep her voice down so no one else would hear her and also because she wasn't quite sure if the girl in front of her was actually Kendra. Before she came over to the table all she was able to see was the girl's back and she still had not looked up, so all she could see was her scalp. And from what she saw, it didn't look like Kendra at all. The girl in front of her had frizzy, unkempt dark hair and a bad case of dandruff. Or at the very least a bad case of what Casey hoped was dandruff. She shuddered as the girl reached a hand up and scratched her head, finally breaking the trance that she had been in while scribbling something in a notebook.

The girl blinked as if attempting to focus her vision when she saw Casey in front of her and Casey took note that it was, in fact, Kendra as she had earlier guessed. "Wow," Kendra commented when she had gained some composure after her face had morphed through several different phases of shock and awe. "Derek said that you were different, but I didn't know that you looked different too. At least in your clothing," her eyes squinted and she looked carefully at Casey's shirt. "Is that Edwin's?"

Casey nodded, "I couldn't really deal with a lot of my clothes. Or, well, not really mine, but the ones that the other me wears."

Kendra pulled her red flannel shirt around her more tightly, covering up the black t-shirt with Inuyasha that she had on underneath it. "Yeah. I know what you mean. Does the other you have a boyfriend?" Kendra asked suspiciously through narrowed eyes.

Casey began to go on the defensive. Maybe this Kendra wasn't so different from her counterpart after all. "I'm newly independent and single," Casey said confidently. "Why?"

Kendra looked down at her fingernails that had been chewed to the quick. "No reason," she muttered. "I was just wondering if maybe you date the other Ralph in your universe."

Casey tried her best not to laugh. "Ralph?" she asked incredulously. "Why would you think that Ralph and I might be dating where I'm from?"

The girl across from her shrugged and tugged at the sleeves of her flannel. "I don't know…he likes you here, so I thought that maybe there you like him too."

"No," Casey answered. "Ralph where I'm from likes pretty much any girl, and I do mean any girl. As long as she has the necessary parts, she's good enough for Ralph. He isn't picky. Why? Do you…like Ralph?"

Kendra blushed and picked up her pencil once more. "He's okay…" she said softly. "He doesn't like me, though." She bent back over her notebook and continued with the work she was doing before Casey had entered the room.

"What are you doing?" Casey asked, stretching to see what the other girl had drawn across the pages of her notebook.

"I'm working on the next act of Empress Hachidori." At Casey's blank look, Kendra explained, "It's a manga that I'm creating. I'm on book two."

"Oh…" Casey said slowly. She'd known a few people who read manga, but she wasn't exactly sure what it was and didn't want to seem stupid. "So…why are you so sure that Ralph doesn't like you? You never know…he might like you."

Kendra gave Casey a look and sighed. "It's not as if he exactly makes it a secret that he likes you. Well, the you that lives here. And the other you just ignores him. And he'd never like me because the other you always says things about me and Ralph believes them too, I suppose, because your word is as good as gold. He would never question it. He also just thinks of me as Derek's other friend, too. I'm just the girl who always tags along."

The bell rang and the teacher walked up to the podium that stood in the middle of the room amidst the tables. "I hope everyone brought their subjects for today's still-life session. Meagan, what did you bring? In fact, after you name off your thing, why don't we all just go around the room and say what we brought to sketch today? So after Meagan, you can be next, Catalina."

A tall blonde and shorter Hispanic looking girl who sat across the room from Casey and Kendra, and whom Casey didn't recognize, nodded and the blonde picked up an artichoke heart, "I'm going to be sketching this," she announced to the class.

The day dragged on, something that Casey generally didn't find herself thinking about school, but it did. It wasn't exciting like school generally was. There was no Emily to talk to. No Derek to argue with or even to prank her. (That last thought was one that was completely of her own volition and that fact scared her. Since when did she like it when Derek pranked her?) She had intelligent conversations with Derek, Kendra, and even Ralph (although he seemed to constantly hang onto her every word) in both Physics class and at Lunch. She should have enjoyed them, not longed for Ralph to stumble over a joke that some cousin from the States had sent him in an email or for there to be an awkward Max sighting in the hallway or for Emily to be going gaga over the newest cute boy at school.

"Casey?" Ralph questioned as the two of them left the cafeteria and walked to English together. "Are you okay?"

She shook herself out of the reverie. "Um…yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, I was just thinking."

"About?" he prompted. "About your poem? I know you don't really like to write, but I'm sure that it's fine."

Casey shook her head. "No, I love writing. Especially poetry," she added. "That isn't it at all. I'm just thinking about where I'm from. Missing everyone…my family, my friends."

He nodded. "Oh, right. That makes sense. Well, were you able to find all of the homework for school today?"

"No," Casey sighed. "I don't think she does homework or something. It was really embarrassing because every class I went to, I was never prepared. I'm always prepared."

"If you want, I could maybe write up a poem for you to read for the class. It wouldn't take long at all," Ralph offered.

"That's okay, Ralph. I can write my own poem." She looked over at Ralph to see him looking at his hands. "I'm sure that your poetry is very nice, though," she added in an attempt to make him feel better.

He smiled broadly, "Really? You think so?" he asked pulling at the bottom of his argyle sweater vest.

Casey made a face; she couldn't help but think that maybe it would have been better to tell him that his poetry blew chunks and that she'd never want him to write a poem for her, although from what Derek had told her, it probably wouldn't have made a difference. "Yeah," she grimaced. "I really think so. I bet they're great."

"Oh, they are," he insisted and turned around to face her, still walking. "Do you want to hear one?"

She thought about it, she really did think about it, but then she asked herself…how much of Ralph being serious about something could she possibly take without laughing? "Why don't we talk about Kendra?" Casey suggested.

Ralph frowned. "Why do you want to talk about her?" he asked. "Oh, did she tell you about her wormhole knowledge? Is that why, because I have it on good authority that her knowledge is vastly overrated?"

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "No, Ralph, that isn't why I want to talk about Kendra," she sighed. "I want to talk about Kendra because I want to know exactly what is going on between the two of you. I, personally, think that the two of you would make a great couple," Casey teased in a sing-song voice.

Continuing his backwards trek down the hallway, Ralph eyed Casey suspiciously. "She told you to say that. She talked to you about me, didn't she? You know, the other you is always saying that Kendra's obsessed with me. It's really sad and creepy."

Casey stopped walking when she noticed Ralph's direction and the boy in a letterman's jacket who stood at his locker not far behind him. "Um, Ralph?" she tried to get him to stop.

"Yeah, you always say that she has no life besides science and her weird little fairytales in those comic books of hers. I don't see why she doesn't just obsess over Derek. She has more of a chance with him, anyway. They're always in his room together performing their little science experiments, although neither of them would even know what to do for it to be anything more than something related to science."

Casey frowned at this, Kendra had told her about some of the general things that she had said about her, but she had never directly said what exactly her words had been. Now, hearing Ralph spout some of them off back at her made her realize how awful the other her was. The sound of someone colliding with the floor broke Casey out of her thoughts and she looked up, stunned, to see that Ralph had indeed collided with the boy that he had been standing at his locker.

"Yo, Sweater Boy! Watch where you're going. What, are you in a hurry to get to one of your girly conventions?"

She watched as Ralph picked himself up off of the floor and straightened the offended sweater vest, eying the other boy carefully. Casey recognized the boy instantly once he turned his head and was shocked, although from what she had seen from everyone else, she knew that she really shouldn't be.

"No, I am not on my way to one of my feminist meetings," Ralph said defiantly with his chin held high before. "I'm on my way to English class, which, I know is where you are also headed."

He turned around and started to walk back to Casey so the two of them could walk to class. "You are so gay, dude; it's a miracle that you and your little friend with the glasses weren't the ones in the sex tape."

Casey narrowed her eyes, mad that he had insulted both Ralph, who never hurt anyone, and Derek who, well, this one didn't seem to hurt anyone, at the same time. "Hey, leave him alone, Sam!"

Sam's grin spread across his face and he laughed. "Oh, what? Are you going to stop me? Look," he said to the people passing through the hallway, "Nasty Girl had to come to the defense of her boyfriend. You're not going to take that, are you Sweater? You need to man up, but that just goes against everything that your little girly classes teach you, doesn't it? Besides, we all know that Nasty here is the man in the relationship, we all saw the action firsthand, dude."

Her face contorted in confusion and she looked at Ralph whose face had also changed to one that was full of fear. "What is he talking about, Ralph?" she asked him quietly, but Ralph didn't answer. Instead, he turned around and marched up to Sam so that he was right in his face.

"I think you need to take that back, Sam," he said. He was trying to exude confidence, but Casey could see from her place feet away that his legs were shaking and she could also hear his voice doing the same.

"Why? Are you going to make me take it back, Sweater Boy?"

"Maybe," Ralph stated. "If I have to I will." He cleared his throat nervously and straightened his posture in an attempt to look menacing. "Do I have to make you? Or are you going to apologize to Casey?"

Sam appeared to be weighing his options and Casey wanted to strangle him and she wasn't even a violent person. The Sam that she was seeing infuriated her to no end and his cocky stance reminded her of Derek slightly, only even Derek didn't go around starting fights. Well, he didn't go around starting them often. "I don't see what exactly I have to apologize for; everything that I said was true."

Ralph clinched his fists and was about to lunge for Sam when Casey walked up to the two. Why was it always her in the middle of these kinds of situations, especially when it involved Sam or Derek? Or sometimes, it involved all of the above. "Look, I don't know why the two of you are about to fight, but seriously you two…fighting is not the answer. So why don't we all just go to English class and the two of you can talk this out over a nice batch of muffins that Ralph's mom will make when this is all over?"

-:-:-LwD-:-:-

"I can't believe you got in a fight with Sam Wallace, Ralph," Derek said, chastising his friend.

Kendra held a bag of frozen peas to Ralph's cheek, near his mouth. "I can't believe you got in a fight at all, Ralphie. Are you okay? Does this feel any better?"

Ralph continued to focus his attention on Casey who was currently pacing the length of Derek's bedroom. "I can't believe that Paul's the principal and a total prick!" seemed to be her mantra.

He shook his head slightly and looked at Kendra, "Uh, yeah. That's fine. It would be a lot better if you could hold it to my eye…where he actually hit me."

Kendra glanced nervously at the bag of peas and up at Ralph's severely bruised eye before laughing awkwardly. "Right. Sorry about that." She moved the bag of peas up along the side of his face before it came to rest on the bruise. "Is that better?"

"It's fine," Ralph answered distractedly as he watched Casey continue to pace before she finally sat down next to Derek.

"Is anyone going to tell me what the fight was even about?" she asked. "Because I have a feeling that it was about me and I think I deserve to know if it was about me."

Derek looked at Casey for a split second before he turned his attention to Ralph's eye, "Uh, how is that eye feeling, Ralph? Does it still hurt? Can I possibly get you some more ice?"

Kendra did something very similar, but the fact that she instantly turned her attention to Ralph's eye as well wasn't something that Casey found out of the ordinary, but when she willingly volunteered to go downstairs with Derek to get ice for Ralph's eye, flags instantly went up. Something was up. Someone wasn't saying something, and Casey wanted to know what she was being left out of.

"Derek, Kendra," Casey called them both out before they were able to make it out of the room. "Sit down."

They obeyed her as if they were both dogs and she was their owner or they were genies or slaves and she was their master. As soon as they were both clear of the door, they sat down in the floor, clearly afraid of her.

"Uh…Ralph's eye needs some ice," Derek attempted weakly, but Casey silenced him with a glare.

"What aren't you guys telling me? Sam made some derogatory comments about me, but none of them were true…were they?"

Kendra bit her lip and raised her hand. "May I be excused?" she asked nervously.

Ralph snorted and muffled a cry of pain when the bag of peas jabbed him in the eye while laughing. "You're not at school, of course you can leave without asking," he retorted, but stopped short at the look that Casey shot him. "Or maybe you can't…"

"Why is no one saying anything? If you guys can't figure out a way to get me home right now, then I at least deserve to know things about this other me. Things that the three of you seem to know about, but none of you want to tell me."

Derek sighed and looked over at Kendra, "Do you know where she keeps her DVD-ROMs?" he asked.

Kendra nodded shyly, "I think so. We had to make a PowerPoint and I had to make a music video for one of my stories, so she let me have one. Why?"

"Go try to find it, if you can," was his answer. "I think she should watch it. She wants to watch it, I think."

Casey got up from her place on the bed and walked over to Derek, pulling him up by the collar of his shirt. It was something that she would do to the Derek that she was used to, but the fact that she had to do it to this Derek who seemed so perfect, albeit geeky, annoyed her to no end. If only someone would tell her something.

"What is it that you think I should watch? What is it that you are not telling me, Derek?" she bit out.

Derek cowered and Ralph had the decency to cower as well instead of stare longingly at Casey as he had been doing for the greater part of the day. "It's just, uh, a video…a video that is where Sam's comments spawned from. I'm also not not telling you anything. I'm just omitting some of the facts that the video will answer for you."

"We don't have to really watch this, do we?" Ralph asked, still in full cower mode.

"Why is it that I suddenly do not have a good feeling about this?" Casey said to herself.

Derek shrugged. "I don't know, but if you ask me, you probably shouldn't have a good feeling about it."

Casey was not listening and was back into full rant-mode. "I mean, I shouldn't have had a good feeling about it to begin with, right? Everything seemed to be going great, but then things were just weird…that's the only way they can be described. I mean, Lizzie…what the heck was up with that? And what was going on with Emily? And Trevor too, what was up with him and with Sam? Of course there's something more…and it has something to do with me, right? I mean…I look weird, okay, but there's still something off about this me." She stopped when Kendra burst into the room announcing that she had the video, holding a DVD case high above her head.

Ralph removed the peas from his one, bruised eye and covered both eyes with the bag, causing Kendra to smile slightly, even though she was afraid of the outcome with Casey after she watched the movie. Maybe she would decide that she wanted something to happen with her and Ralph after all.

"We should probably warn you, Casey, that this isn't exactly shot from the best angle," Derek explained. "It was shot from your webcam, purely accidental, but people made copies…so, I hope that explains what Sam was talking about a little better."

"You're explaining the angle, Derek? Really?" Ralph asked and moved the peas away from his face before raising the pea-filled hand in the air. "May I be excused, please?" he tried the tactic that Kendra had used before, hoping that it would work for him where it had failed for her. The video started and the bag of peas quickly covered his eyes once again.

Casey stared at Derek's computer screen, slack-jawed. "Oh my God," she exclaimed. "Is that…me?"

Derek nodded. "Yes, that's you," he confirmed.

"…and Ralph?"

Kendra sighed. "Yes, that's Ralph too."

"Oh my God…I have to…I'll be right back," she tore out of the room without further explanation and ran down the hallway to Lizzie's closet, locking herself inside.

Closing her eyes, she began to think over all of the times that she had wished for Derek to be different. Even more than the time that she had had the dream about getting her wish for there to be no Derek on her birthday and Edwin ended up one-hundred times worse than Derek, she wanted this to be a dream. She wanted to wake up in her bed to find her drawers and closet empty from Derek stealing her clothes. She wanted Lizzie to begin campaigning for the family to go vegan or to buy a tract of land in the rainforest. She didn't want to wake up and everything be real, for everything to be what she had walked into when the other Derek had pulled her out of Lizzie's closet.

The door to the closet opened and Derek walked in, causing Casey to do a double take. It was the real Derek, not the one that was a complete geek and who had worn the same shirt for two days in a row.

"Uh…what are you doing just sitting in the games closet?" he asked. She pushed herself off of the ground and grabbed the Chutes and Ladders box that she found discarded at her feet. Derek grabbed the box from her. "Hey, thanks. I was looking for that Marti is demanding that we have a game time." He walked out of the closet and Casey silently followed, maybe she needed a break from cleaning out the games closet. "Hey, what happened to your hair?"